Talk:Discord/@comment-3160348-20110925120700
I do to. As Discord is obviously an ancient and powerful god of chaos it only makes since that there is a god/goddess of order called harmony. Earth's management of seasons and weather ect. seem somewhere between Celestia's rule and what happened when Discord broke free so it only makes since that things are supposed to work on a balance between chaos and order. So in the beginning Discord and Harmony governed the world together, and there was balance, so things were much as they are on Earth. Eventually Discord defeated Harmony and attempted to destroy her, but as she was a Goddess she couldn't be destroyed completely and she lived on in the Elements of Harmony. This is alluded to when Nightmare Moon attempts to destroy the elements, but they live on in the mane cast. So anyway, now that Discord was in control things were even more chaotic than they where in the Return of Harmony, but still nature processes went on, just without any logic. Things really sucked and so the world needed to be saved. Discord heard somesort of prophesy that it would be an Alicorn who would defeat him, so he tried to kill all the Alicorns, but somehow Luna and Celestia survived the genocide. Together with a group of four other friends they found the elements of harmony and turned Discord to stone to avenge the alicorns. However, the destruction of chaos was not a good thing, as the natural chaos that kept things going ceased to exist and natural processes such as the sun and moon raising and setting stopped, so Equestria had a major problem. Celestria learned to manage the sun and Luna learned how to manage the moon, solving the problem, giving them their cutie marks, and turning the sisters into Goddesses. The ponies now had to mange the lack of chaos through order, which is why the ponies change the seasons and manage the weather. However, just as the defeat of Harmony didn't get rid of all order the defeat of Discord didn't get rid of all chaos. The area of Equestria that still had enough chaos to function on its own became the Everfree Forest, so named as it is the only region still free from order. Discord, being the cunning manipulator that he is managed to twist Luna to the point where he was able control her, and under his semi-possession which is also seen in the return of harmony he turned Luna into Nightmare Moon. Celestia couldn't purge Discord from Luna and turn Nightmare Moon back into her normal self as her party lacked Luna's element, and Celestia didn't want to kill Nightmare Moon as she was still Luna and still her sister, so she partly bound Luna using the five elements of harmony and banished her to the moon for a thousand years, after which she would be free, but a new set of bearers of the elements of harmony would be formed and they would be able to purge Luna. So the reason Nightmare broke free after a thousand years was not because there was some funky alignment of the stars that let Nightmare Moon break free, but because Celestia let her free so that she may be defeated and turned back in to Luna.